Portfolio for Mark Cloutier
My Expertise
Full Stack Software Engineer with a passion for implementing complex software solutions in intuitive, agile ways using my skills as a leader, technology enthusiast, and software developer.
Code
These days, I find myself mostly working in Java or Python, but I have experience in a wide array of languages such as Ada, C, C++, C#, HTML, Javascript, MATLAB, R, and SQL. In a future lifetime, I'd love to learn Go, Clojure, Scala, and the popular Web Application frameworks.
Technologies
I've spent many years working with orchestration, virtualization, and container based technologies like VirtualBox,Kubernetes and Docker. My OS of choice is RHEL/CentOS, but also have spent a lot of time in Windows 10 and Ubuntu. There are new cutting edge technologies coming out an a daily basis, and if I had my choice, I'd learn all of them.
Tools
Tools are what (usually) make our lives as developers easier. I spend most of my day coding in a Eclipse, VSCode, or Notepad++ and committing my code into Gitlab, Github, or Bitbucket. For the ins and outs of ticket management, documenting, and code reviews, I am most familiar with the Atlassian tools like JIRA, Confluence, and Crucible.
Featured Hobby Projects
Alpaca Java
Alpaca is an API First Commission Free Brokerage. I noticed that Alpaca did not have Java variant of their API and volunteered to create one. I started the repository on Github and maintained it for a while, but as my free time became more scarce, I handed the 'ownership' reins over to another developer.
ELI5 Software & Technology
Software and Technology is full of complicated concepts. ELI5 stands for 'Explain Like I'm 5', which is a technique to explain something complicated in a way that a 5 year old could understand (note: this is just an ideal -- most of this stuff is still too complicated for a 5 year old). I wanted to create a simple interface backed by markdown files that would present 'ELI5' variants of explanations for complex software and technology concepts.
Quest Slayer
Quest Slayer is a concept that I've toyed with in my mind for many years. I've always wanted to implement a web app that lets users keep track of 'Quests'. This is currently a Proof of Concept built on blogspot as it was a free host at the time, but at some point I'd like to move this over to Github pages.
Bookshelf
So many books, so little time...
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- Title:
- Zero to One
- Author:
- Peter Thiel
- Released:
- January 1, 2014
The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create....
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- Title:
- Ghost in the Wires
- Author:
- Kevin Mitnick
- Released:
- April 24, 2012
Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the biggest companies...
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- Title:
- Chaos Monkeys
- Author:
- Antonio Garcia Martinez
- Released:
- July 24, 2018
Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a data center powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version...
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- Title:
- A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms
- Author:
- Jay Wengrow
- Released:
- September 1, 2020
The truth about algorithms and data structures is that everything about them boils down to common sense.
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- Title:
- Modern Java in Action
- Author:
- Raoul-Gabriel Urma
- Released:
- November 15, 2018
Modern Java in Action connects new features of the Java language with their practical applications. Using crystal-clear examples and careful...
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- Title:
- The Unicorn Project
- Author:
- Gene Kim
- Released:
- November 26, 2019
The Age of Software is here, and another mass extinction event looms—this is a story about rebel developers and business...
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- Title:
- Clean Architecture
- Author:
- Robert C. Martin
- Released:
- September 20, 2017
By applying universal rules of software architecture, you can dramatically improve developer productivity throughout the life of any software system....
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- Title:
- Grokking Algorithms
- Author:
- Aditya Bhargava
- Released:
- May 1, 2016
Grokking Algorithms is a fully illustrated and friendly guide that teaches you how to apply common algorithms to the practical...
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- Title:
- Staff Engineer
- Author:
- Will Larson
- Released:
- January 31, 2021
At most technology companies, you'll reach Senior software engineer, the career level for software engineers, in five to eight years....
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- Title:
- Humble Pi
- Author:
- Matt Parker
- Released:
- January 21, 2020
Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of...
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- Title:
- The Man Who Solved The Market
- Author:
- Gregory Zuckerman
- Released:
- November 5, 2019
The unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm & made $23 billion doing it....
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- Title:
- The Clean Coder
- Author:
- Robert C. Martin
- Released:
- May 23, 2011
Programmers who endure and succeed amidst swirling uncertainty and nonstop pressure share a common attribute - They care deeply about...
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- Title:
- 97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know
- Author:
- Kevlin Henney & Trisha Gee
- Released:
- July 14, 2020
If you want to push your Java skills to the next level, this book provides expert advice from Java leaders...
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- Title:
- Working in Public
- Author:
- Nadia Eghbal
- Released:
- August 4, 2020
Open source software in which developers publish code that anyone can use has long served as a bellwether for other...
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- Title:
- Flash Boys
- Author:
- Michael Lewis
- Released:
- March 23, 2015
In this game-changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged...
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- Title:
- No Rules Rules - Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
- Author:
- Reed Hastings
- Released:
- September 8, 2020
There has never before been a company like Netflix. It has led...
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- Title:
- Lab Rats
- Author:
- Dan Lyons
- Released:
- October 23, 2018
At a time of soaring corporate profits and plenty of HR lip service about wellness, millions of workers--in virtually every...
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- Title:
- 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know
- Author:
- Kevlin Henney
- Released:
- March 2, 2010
Tap into the wisdom of experts to learn what every programmer should know, no matter what language you use. With...
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- Title:
- Naked Statistics
- Author:
- Charles Wheelan
- Released:
- January 13, 2014
Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has...
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- Title:
- The Quants
- Author:
- Scott Patterson
- Released:
- January 25, 2011
With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once...
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- Title:
- The New New Thing
- Author:
- Michael Lewis
- Released:
- October 17, 1999
In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Lewis set out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the...
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- Title:
- The Innovators
- Author:
- Walter Isaacson
- Released:
- October 7, 2014
The Innovators is a masterly saga of collaborative genius destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution—and an...
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- Title:
- A Philosophy of Software Design
- Author:
- John Ousterhout
- Released:
- April 6, 2018
This book addresses the topic of software design -- how to decompose complex software systems into modules (such as classes...
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- Title:
- Blink
- Author:
- Malcom Gladwell
- Released:
- April 3, 2007
Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in...
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- Title:
- Flash Crash
- Author:
- Liam Vaughan
- Released:
- May 12, 2020
On May 6, 2010, financial markets around the world tumbled simultaneously and without warning. In the span of 5 minutes,...
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- Title:
- Algorithms To Live By
- Author:
- Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths
- Released:
- April 19, 2016
A fascinating exploration of how insights from computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives, helping to solve common...
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- Title:
- Disrupted
- Author:
- Dan Lyons
- Released:
- March 7, 2017
For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he...
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- Title:
- The Tipping Point
- Author:
- Malcolm Gladwell
- Released:
- January 7, 2002
The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads...
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- Title:
- The Problem With Software
- Author:
- Adam Barr
- Released:
- October 23, 2018
An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software―and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them...
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- Title:
- The DevOps Handbook
- Author:
- Gene Kim, Jez Humble & Patrick Debois
- Released:
- October 6, 2016
More than ever, the effective management of technology is critical for business competitiveness. For decades, technology leaders have struggled to...
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- Title:
- Coders
- Author:
- Clive Thompson
- Released:
- March 26, 2019
Facebook's algorithms shaping the news. Self-driving cars roaming the streets. Revolution on Twitter and romance on Tinder. We live in...
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- Title:
- Superintelligence
- Author:
- Nick Bostrom
- Released:
- May 1, 2016
Superintelligence asks the questions -- What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy...
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- Title:
- Tim Cook
- Author:
- Leander Kahney
- Released:
- April 16, 2019
The death of Steve Jobs left a gaping void at one of the most innovative companies of all time. Jobs...
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- Title:
- A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence
- Author:
- Kartik Hosanagar
- Released:
- March 12, 2019
A professor and entrepreneur examines how algorithms and AI are starting to run every aspect of our lives, and how...
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- Title:
- How Google Works
- Author:
- Eric Schmidt & Jon Rosenberg
- Released:
- March 21, 2017
Seasoned Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg provide an insider's guide to Google.
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- Title:
- Elon Musk
- Author:
- Ashlee Vance
- Released:
- May 19, 2015
In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary...
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- Title:
- Tribe of Mentors
- Author:
- Tim Ferriss
- Released:
- November 21, 2017
From iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors, their short profiles can help you answer life's most...
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- Title:
- Effective Java
- Author:
- Joshua Bloch
- Released:
- January 6, 2018
The support in modern Java for multiple paradigms increases the need for specific best-practices advice, and this book delivers.
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- Title:
- Developer Hegemony
- Author:
- Erik Dietrich
- Released:
- April 26, 2017
A play-by-play of how to leave the corporate carnival and control your own destiny.
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- Title:
- The Phoenix Project
- Author:
- Gene Kim & Kevin Behr
- Released:
- January 10, 2013
In a fast-paced style, 3 luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will...
-
- Title:
- Steve Jobs
- Author:
- Walter Isaacson
- Released:
- October 24, 2011
Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years - as well as interviews with more than...
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- Title:
- Fumbling the Future
- Author:
- Douglas Smith & Robert Alexander
- Released:
- June 1, 1999
Tells how Xerox invented the technology of the fastest-growing products of recent times, then miscalculated the opportunity to fully exploit...
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- Title:
- Without Their Permission
- Author:
- Alexis Ohanian
- Released:
- October 1, 2013
Reddit co-founder enlightens how the internet can be harnessed to create new technologies, businesses or charities, with results that can...
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- Title:
- Peopleware
- Author:
- Tom DeMarco
- Released:
- June 28, 2013
The major issues of software development are human, not technical. They are not easy issues; but solve them, and you’ll...
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- Title:
- Code Complete
- Author:
- Steve McConnell
- Released:
- June 19, 2004
Widely considered one of the best practical guides to programming, this book llustrates the art and science of software construction....
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- Title:
- Masters of Doom
- Author:
- David Kushner
- Released:
- May 11, 2004
The amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games -- John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they...
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- Title:
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications
- Author:
- Martin Kleppmann
- Released:
- April 2, 2017
Data is at the center of many challenges in system design today. Difficult issues need to be figured out, such...
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- Title:
- Clean Agile
- Author:
- Robert C. Martin
- Released:
- October 17, 2019
Nearly twenty years after the Agile Manifesto was first presented, the legendary Robert C. Martin reintroduces Agile values and principles...
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- Title:
- The Drunkard's Walk
- Author:
- Leonard Mlodinow
- Released:
- May 5, 2009
By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world...
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- Title:
- Head First Agile
- Author:
- Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene
- Released:
- October 10, 2017
Agile is growing faster every day, all across the world--and for good reason. The tools, techniques, practices, and ideas behind...
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- Title:
- Effective Python
- Author:
- Brett Slatkin
- Released:
- November 15, 2019
It’s easy to start developing programs with Python, which is why the language is so popular. However, Python’s unique strengths,...
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- Title:
- Head First Go
- Author:
- Jay McGavren
- Released:
- May 7, 2019
Go makes it easy to build software that’s simple, reliable, and efficient. And this book makes it easy for programmers...
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- Title:
- Dark Pools
- Author:
- Scott Patterson
- Released:
- June 25, 2013
In the beginning was Josh Levine, an idealistic programming genius who dreamed of wresting control of the market from the...
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- Title:
- Hands-On Microservices with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud
- Author:
- Magnus Larsson
- Released:
- September 20, 2019
Microservices architecture allows developers to build and maintain applications with ease, and enterprises are rapidly adopting it to build software...
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- Title:
- Bad Blood - Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
- Author:
- John Carreyrou
- Released:
- May 21, 2018
In Bad Blood, the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou takes us through the step-by-step history of Theranos, a Silicon Valley...
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- Title:
- Rework
- Author:
- Jason Fried & David H. Hansson
- Released:
- March 1, 2010
From the founders of the trailblazing software company 37signals, here is a different kind of business book - one that...
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- Title:
- The Signal and the Noise
- Author:
- Nate Silver
- Released:
- February 3, 2015
Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became...
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- Title:
- Einstein - His Life and Universe
- Author:
- Walter Isaacson
- Released:
- May 13, 2008
How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson’s biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the...
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- Title:
- Java Concurrency in Practice
- Author:
- Brian Goetz
- Released:
- April 16, 2019
Threads are a fundamental part of the Java platform. As multicore processors become the norm, using concurrency effectively becomes essential...
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- Title:
- Trillion Dollar Coach
- Author:
- Eric Schmidt, Jon Rosenberg & Alan Eagle
- Released:
- April 16, 2019
Bill Campbell played an instrumental role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit, fostering...
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- Title:
- Jony Ive
- Author:
- Leander Kahney
- Released:
- October 28, 2014
Leander Kahney offers a detailed portrait of the English art school student with dyslexia who became the most acclaimed tech...
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- Title:
- Fluent Python
- Author:
- Luciano Ramalho
- Released:
- September 1, 2015
An experienced programmer may start writing useful Python code in a matter of hours. As the first productive hours become...
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- Title:
- Principles
- Author:
- Ray Dalio
- Released:
- September 19, 2017
In 1975, Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Forty...
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- Title:
- Streaming Systems
- Author:
- Tyler Akidau, Slava Chernyak & Reuven Lax
- Released:
- August 2, 2018
Streaming data is a big deal in big data these days. As more and more businesses seek to tame the...
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- Title:
- Clean Code
- Author:
- Robert C. Martin
- Released:
- August 11, 2008
Best agile practices of cleaning code “on the fly” that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman...
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- Title:
- Weapons of Math Destruction
- Author:
- Cathy O'Neil
- Released:
- September 6, 2016
We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—-where we go to school, whether...
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- Title:
- Microservices in Action
- Author:
- Morgan Bruce & Paulo A. Pereira
- Released:
- November 5, 2018
Microservices in Action is a practical book about building and deploying microservice-based applications. Written for developers and architects with a...